Nothing grates me more than hypocrisy and with this story, there's plenty to go around.
Let's start with Congress. Being an election year where every Congressman and woman turn into "bunny rabbits," this sale is tantamount to committing treason. "National Security is at risk!," cries one, "We can't give American Sovereignty away !" cries another, "The UAE doesn't recognize Israel !" bleats another. Gimme a break.
Gee, where were these same Congressmen and women when Panama was going to sell the Panana Canal to China (who, by the way the last time I checked, are still Communists)? Did we have any security risks there? Nope. Remember, A British firm owned the ports before the proposed sale to Dubai. No outrage there. Today, I read that Congressman Duncan Hunter wants to propose legislation that would ban any foreign country from buying our ports. This is all just posturing for the following reasons:
- They get to look tough on the issue of Protectionism
- They get to look tough on Terrorism
- They get to look as big supporters of Israel
On the issue of Terrorism, from what I've read, the UAE has been one of our stonger partners in the War on Terrorism (Yes Virginia, its a real war!). Also, Fox News did an in-depth review of port security in America, they found:
- All inbound cargo has to provide US Customs with a manifest of the cargo
- All cargo is scanned for radioactive materials
- US Customs has the right to inspect any cargo container for any reason at any time
Given of all of this, you're probably thinking, "Man, this guy is all for this deal!" Nope. The Bush Administration should check all of the Dubai port company leaders and determine if any of them have any ties to terrorism. Hopefully, they have already done this. If not, big shame on them and they deserve all of the grief their getting. However, if they pass muster, we need to let the deal go through and get on with the business of competing with foreigners instead treating them as folks who on are on a ship with no port to go home to.
2 comments:
I talked about this in my last podcast. You are right, it's bullshit, plain and simple. If you look at what they are actually buying, the record of the company buying the assets and the fact that UAE has helped us out a lot in the WOT, there is really no reason not to sell them. As you stated, congresspeople up for election are screaming and yelling - as if any of them have one iota of how the business of moving cargo is run. The security issues are all red herrings as the Dept. of Homeland Security and the local port authorities took care of it before and will take care of it again. COSCO, a front for the government of communist China owns large portions of many ports all across the US and have for sometime, but nobody said boo about that. Everyone involved in this non-story should be ashamed of themselves and start doing a little research before yelling about us "selling our ports".
Not to mention that officials from Israel talked about saying that they had no problem with Dubai Ports World security ever in the past.
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